Water need is bigger than boondoggle

Published: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 5:47 p.m.

State lawmakers should fund worthy rural projects, such as a $300,000 grant to extend city water lines to Dana residents who have tainted well water, regardless of what they decide to do with the troubled N.C. Rural Economic Development Center.

Already targeted by budget-cutters in the N.C. Senate, the center came under new fire after the News & Observer of Raleigh on Saturday released an investigation into its activities. The report found the center has been wasting tax dollars and exaggerating its effectiveness.

The newspaper found that the center used millions in taxpayer money to help build fast-food restaurants, golf resorts and big-box retailers including Wal-Mart, while in some cases inflating estimates of jobs created by its activities. The report also said the center has accumulated more than $69 million that has gone unspent because of delayed projects or deals that went bust.

No wonder Republican Senate leaders have been seeking to zero out the stateís $16.6 million appropriation to the center and reorganize rural economic development efforts under the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Billy Ray Hall, director of the center, says the organization used state money to create 19,911 jobs in the past five years, claims he says can be proven through employment payroll records. But the News & Observerís review found more than 950 jobs included in his count were from projects that havenít yet begun.

The newspaper also found the center made a number of questionable loans with taxpayer funds. It spent $85,000 to help an electronic sweepstakes software company outfit a building in Greenville after lawmakers tried to shut the sweepstakes industry down. It granted $350,000 for water wells in La Grange, about an hour southeast of Raleigh, saying the infrastructure would generate 35 full-time jobs at a new restaurant. It turned out the restaurant was a Bojanglesí that had already hired workers and opened its doors the next week; the wells were drilled six years later to solve a major water-capacity problem in the town.

This all sounds like a bad joke, but these are the sorts of boondoggles GOP lawmakers railed against during the years when state government was under Democratic control. Now that Republicans control both houses and the governorship, their challenge is to cut waste without cutting funding for badly needed projects.

The $300,000 grant the Rural Center had planned to help extend city water lines to the Dana community is one such critical need. Two dozen families who live along Academy Road and Meadow Woods Drive are unable to drink their water due to chemicals from pesticides once used in the area that got into groundwater. The city of Hendersonville was counting on the state grant and other grants to fund an estimated $600,000 water-line extension.

The state House, Senate and governor must decide whether it makes sense to eliminate funding for the Rural Center and replace it with a new effort. Regardless, the state should fulfill the commitment to get clean water to Dana.

<p>State lawmakers should fund worthy rural projects, such as a $300,000 grant to extend city water lines to Dana residents who have tainted well water, regardless of what they decide to do with the troubled N.C. Rural Economic Development Center.</p><p>Already targeted by budget-cutters in the N.C. Senate, the center came under new fire after the News & Observer of Raleigh on Saturday released an investigation into its activities. The report found the center has been wasting tax dollars and exaggerating its effectiveness.</p><p>The newspaper found that the center used millions in taxpayer money to help build fast-food restaurants, golf resorts and big-box retailers including Wal-Mart, while in some cases inflating estimates of jobs created by its activities. The report also said the center has accumulated more than $69 million that has gone unspent because of delayed projects or deals that went bust.</p><p>No wonder Republican Senate leaders have been seeking to zero out the state’s $16.6 million appropriation to the center and reorganize rural economic development efforts under the N.C. Department of Commerce.</p><p>Billy Ray Hall, director of the center, says the organization used state money to create 19,911 jobs in the past five years, claims he says can be proven through employment payroll records. But the News & Observer’s review found more than 950 jobs included in his count were from projects that haven’t yet begun.</p><p>The newspaper also found the center made a number of questionable loans with taxpayer funds. It spent $85,000 to help an electronic sweepstakes software company outfit a building in Greenville after lawmakers tried to shut the sweepstakes industry down. It granted $350,000 for water wells in La Grange, about an hour southeast of Raleigh, saying the infrastructure would generate 35 full-time jobs at a new restaurant. It turned out the restaurant was a Bojangles’ that had already hired workers and opened its doors the next week; the wells were drilled six years later to solve a major water-capacity problem in the town.</p><p>This all sounds like a bad joke, but these are the sorts of boondoggles GOP lawmakers railed against during the years when state government was under Democratic control. Now that Republicans control both houses and the governorship, their challenge is to cut waste without cutting funding for badly needed projects.</p><p>The $300,000 grant the Rural Center had planned to help extend city water lines to the Dana community is one such critical need. Two dozen families who live along Academy Road and Meadow Woods Drive are unable to drink their water due to chemicals from pesticides once used in the area that got into groundwater. The city of Hendersonville was counting on the state grant and other grants to fund an estimated $600,000 water-line extension.</p><p>The state House, Senate and governor must decide whether it makes sense to eliminate funding for the Rural Center and replace it with a new effort. Regardless, the state should fulfill the commitment to get clean water to Dana.</p>